Help me find this missing superhero story from the interwebs!

April 12, 2008 6:03 AM

Help me find the alternative superhero story I read online four years ago. Features a side character stuck in a time loop and a possibly unwilling superhero possibly named Bob.

- I read this story online sometime between 2002 and 2005.

- Pretty sure it was told in first person from the point of view of the superhero.

- Pretty sure the character's name was Bob or Bill - Definitely something boring-sounding, considering the guy had super powers.

- Part of his super power affliction might have been that he was physically unable NOT to help a citizen in distress, but I'm not sure of this. It may be that he would be teleported helplessly to the scene of a crime and forced to assist in that way. The attitude of the character was definitely not pro-heroism, i.e. he expressed little interest in helping others, or perhaps saw it as futile.

- One of other characters in the story kept on getting stuck in a time warp / time loop of his own device, possibly because he was trying to ward off his own death by popping out of the sequence of events just before it occurred.

- There's a slight chance that the entire citizenry was made up of superheroes, or at least people with super powers.

- It was hosted on a website with a black and red background, and the text itself was black on red. It was presented as a series of chapters, I believe, and may not have been finished at the time I was reading it. For this reason, I think it may not have appeared in print at any point.


As with most of these questions, the details are half-remembered and may be mixed in with things from other stories I've read, but I'd be very appreciative if anyone can help me solve this mystery.

posted by lizzicide to media & arts (4 comments total)

A few random possible memory joggers:

The real name of Mr Incredible is "Bob Parr", and there is a kind of black on red theme in that movie that someone might have copied for a fan fiction page.

I also thought of City of Heroes, here is a fan fiction site that uses red on black.

Lastly, the second Flash was called Barry Allen (another ordinary sounding name!), could travel in time, and had a red costume. Just a thought.

Good luck with this - if you can remember any other odd details no matter how small it would be worth adding them here. It's often little things that can be the key to tracking something down.
posted by tomcooke at 1:38 PM on April 12

I have a feeling that some of my details up there may be misleading, unfortunately, so if anyone has any inkling at all (the above ones are great, tomcooke, thanks!), post away.

As far as I know, it's not Incredible-related. The story seemed adult to me, and had a very noir undertone, and beside that, I believe the main character shared the following as an example as to why it's a pain to be a superhero: He had brought a girl home to his apartment but had to bail before sealing the deal with her, because someone was in distress. Angst.

The website was very clean-looking and professional, understated. Black Arial font on solid red background with black in the back-background.

No recollection of costumes being described.
posted by lizzicide at 2:19 PM on April 12

The story you are asking about is Marvelous Bob.

Sadly, the writer, Michael Buonauro, committed suicide shortly after uploading the final chapter to his livejournal. It was a great story, encompassing everything you wrote about. Bob did have a friend who had the ability of time travel, but it aged him severely. Bob was very much an anti-hero. He had problems with his girlfriend, didn't care much about citizens etc.. I don't think he HAD to save people, but he did. He could hear things across town, I believe he could teleport, he was extremely fast, super strong. He was simply marvelous!

The archives have been taken off the website, but I checked the Wayback Machine and they seem to be there. Although when I click on the links they don't cooperate. Possibly in a few hours or something they might work. Glad I could help!
posted by saxamo at 4:13 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Oh my god. I'm going to cry. That's...horrible!

Well, thank you, saxamo.

.

:(
posted by lizzicide at 5:18 PM on April 12